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He lifted my wrist to his face and pressed his lips to the healed marks on the inside of my wrist.
He kissed me softly and let me go.
“Tomorrow,” he muttered.
“Yes,” I croaked out past suddenly dry lips.
I walked away like Adrian had, without bothering to look back.
I really didn’t need to look back at all that skin. Or, at least that’s what I told myself.
Chapter Two
Quinton
Motherfucker.
I left the study in a horrible, black mood that threatened to swallow me whole and consume me, if I allowed it. That goddamned Adrian had some big balls, I’d give him that. Bringing that piece of crap football player to my fucking house after what he’d done to my family. And knowing he’d been bringing him here for weeks now, and we hadn’t known because he’d left the prick in his car, and had been leaving his car parked on the side of the road. No one had thought to look.
Un-fucking-believable.
My hands were tied. I couldn’t go against them, and there was no hiding her now that she’d been introduced to them. Not that she’d let me hide her. I couldn’t get away with much where she was concerned.
She was stubborn and had been incredibly magnificent when she’d first met them. I wished she’d been a lot less so, because now she was on their radar big time, and wouldn’t be leaving it any time soon, like, not in this lifetime. No one ever spoke to the Council the way that she had, the way I imagine she’d been speaking to Adrian every single day she spent time with him. It was similar to the way she dealt with me. Ariel was refreshing, like a breath of fresh air in the early spring. Cool, crisp, clean and refreshing. I’d seen it in their eyes and the way they’d looked at her, watched her as she told them her life story. They’d gone for intimidation and ended up enthralled themselves. The Council often liked to use intimidation tactics to control people and every situation they found themselves in.
I moved through the house, heading towards my bedroom. I was in a foul mood, and knew that if the others came across me in this mood right now I would snap at them.
Then I would feel bad later for snapping at them, and a guilty conscience was never a good time for any one, least of all me. I knew from experience, because I lost my temper and snapped at people all the time; I always ended up feeling badly about it later on. I rarely apologized for my bad behavior, though, unless it was to my family. Admitting when I was wrong about something always made me feel weak, when I should have felt anything but, because it took strength to admit your faults, and even more so to point your faults out to others. Which, by the way, is exactly what apologizing did.
I sighed as I shoved open the door to my bedroom with so much force that it banged into the wall and flew back at me. I threw my hand out, stopping it with my palm rather than my face. The door slapped against my palm, stinging my flesh. I relished the pain; it cleared away some of my anger and made it easier for me to think straight. It made me less volatile. I no longer wanted to punch any and every person who crossed my path. There were now only two people I would punch if I set my eyes on them and, thankfully, neither of them were currently in my house.
I pushed the door open again, this time with a gentle shove rather than a forceful one. It stopped before hitting the wall as I entered my personal, private space. Or, at least it was supposed to be personal and private, but I knew it not to be always so. Ty came in here often when I wasn’t home to catch him and bust his ass for it. The door and windows were spelled to alert me when anyone entered the room. I knew it to be my nephew because his essence always lingered behind long after he was gone. I never questioned what he did when he came into my room, we were blood, our bond fierce, and I trusted him before all others.
It wasn’t always the case, that blood relations meant you could trust the person you were related to with everything. I had learned that particular lesson as a child growing up under my father’s merciless ruling of me. My brother had been different, the exact opposite of our father, and incredibly lucky because his mother had cared for him above all others, and had worked her ass off to keep father away from son. My own mother had been weak, sickly, and had only cared about saving herself; to hell with her one and only child. I wasn’t bitter about it or anything, and I never once judged her poorly for her actions or the choices she’d made. Her weakness had helped to birth my inner strength, something that was priceless to me, and I could never look down on her for it. I wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with her, though. Between the two of us, we managed to hide the better part of the monster my father was from the world, but it had come at a price.
Ty was exactly as his father had been. He carried his anger around with him everywhere he went and used it like a shield to keep others at bay. He was quick to temper, but it always burned out fast, and he had a soft spot I envied him for. He was more like a brother to me than a nephew and, until Ariel had come into our lives, I hadn’t thought myself capable of loving another human being as much as I loved Tyson and had loved his father before him.
He'd earned the trust I’d placed in him, and it had a whole lot more to do with him as a person than it did the blood that ran through his veins, my veins.
I winced at the thought of blood as the door closed behind me with a soft click and I moved through my bedroom. Blood ties were strong, hard to break, and I feared the damage Rain Kimber might inflict upon my Ariel. She was far too naïve and hopeful where the man was concerned, and it scared me. If he turned out to be an asshole, it would break her heart as nothing she’d been through so far had.
And what the hell kind of name was Rain anyway? A stupid one, if you asked me. Okay, that was kind of a lie. Maybe the name was a little bit awesome, not that I would ever admit to such a thing aloud where others might hear me. Nope, I’d rather chew off my own fingers than admit to anything.
I had wondered at first how she’d known his name when none of the letters had been signed, so I questioned her about it. She’d found his name written on the back of one of the photographs that had only portrayed the man who bore such a striking resemblance to my Ariel, in her false mother’s handwriting. I questioned why she’d written that name down on only the one photograph and the why of it. If he truly were her brother, then why write down his name on the back of a photograph when she already knew who he was? People don’t write names on the backs of photos unless they expected someone outside of themselves to see it. It was almost as if she had known one day Ariel would find it and need to read the name written on the back.
I didn’t understand why she hadn’t simply burned the letters. Why hold onto them for years? And, where had the pictures come from? Had she taken them with her when she’d left home with Ariel, or, had Rain sent them to her along with his letters?
Too many questions floating around, and not enough answers to be had.
Tired, I sighed heavily as I looked down at my bare feet. It was rare for me to walk around barefoot and not wearing cowboy boots that were a light brown and well worn. Well worn because they had been a birthday gift from my big brother on my sixteenth birthday. I had grown up watching westerns, and loved cowboys. Especially if they rode around on horses, robbing trains and got to shoot off their guns.
It was only a few short years after he’d given me the boots that he’d gone and died, and Tyson and I were left alone together with our mutual anger and sorrow. I had stopped wearing the boots after my brother died. They’d hurt too much to even look at.
I’d had other boots, gifts from the guys, to wear, and I had. But never those ones, not until Ariel had come into our lives did I bust them out of their box and put them back on my feet again. She made everything easier, better, more bearable for me. I no longer cared so much about the past, because suddenly I had a future that seemed brighter than it had ever before, simply because she was now a huge part of it.
I glanced around my bedroom as my mind wandered, taking the sparse furnishings in. The house was huge because there were a lot of us, and it took a lot of space to house us, and we needed a safe house; this was it. Even my bedroom was on the large size, though I didn’t need the space, nor did I make use of it.
My twin size bed with metal frame and no headboard or footboard was shoved up against the wall in between the only two windows in the room. On either side of the windows, from floor to ceiling, books were stacked one on top of another all the way up to touch the ceiling. The books had once belonged to my father. They were the one thing of his that I couldn’t allow myself to get rid of or hide away in the storage unit where I didn’t have to see it. It had nothing to do with the fact they’d once belonged to the man who’d sired me, there was no sentimental value to be found there when it came to me and the things that had once belonged to the old man. The value, for me, was in the knowledge written down on those pages, and they were invaluable to me because, with knowledge came power, and I had yet to read all of the books.
